One method for determining platform placement that is most often used may be thought of as a “move and calculate footage” based method. In this method, a series of wellpath plans are created manually, one at a time, using dogleg, inclination, reach, and anti-collision as the planning criteria for the platform location. The cumulative measured depth traversed by the many wellpaths is summed and used as a measurement of the base case location.
Once the wellpaths are created, the well planner then moves the surface location of the base case platform a fixed distance, usually in one of the four compass directions, and recalculates the cumulative measured depth. If the cumulative measured depth decreases from the base case measurement, the well planner knows that there is a potential location which is “better” than the base case location. The planner then goes through many iterations moving the platform location by different distances and to different compass directions from the base case location looking for the best location based on the total calculated footage of the wellpaths that will be required to drill from the wells to the platform location.
The above-mentioned methodology has a number of drawbacks. For example, it is tedious, time consuming, and requires fixing the number of plans and targets to be reached. Using this methodology, it is not unusual for well planners to spend three to four weeks on one project.
Other automated methods for platform placement use Monte-Carlo or random number based statistical calculations for platform placement and take into account producers vs. injectors, cost of processing facilities, and existing pipelines. They, however, do not take into account target weighting, and may also not re-allocate the number of targets to find a better platform placement solution.
Therefore, there is a need for an automated method which varies the number and locations of Platforms as well as optimizes the targets used if the resultant platform set provides a plan that: a) reaches more targets; b) reaches the same number of targets with less distance; or c) reaches the same number of targets, but includes targets with higher weighting values based on the reservoir parameters.
Embodiments of the present invention are directed at overcoming one or more of the above deficiencies described in the art.